


for all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you

by nevernevergirl



Series: the war is over and we are beginning [9]
Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Baby Fic, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Future Fic, Post canon, parenting, pregnancy fic, yorkes children tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25053211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevernevergirl/pseuds/nevernevergirl
Summary: gert's not like a regular mom. she's a cool mom. gert and chase work through trauma and anxiety, parenthood edition.collection of prompts for gertchase-as-parents fic. they're trying their best!
Relationships: Chase Stein/Gertrude Yorkes
Series: the war is over and we are beginning [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685389
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	1. "my favorite boots don't fit"

**Author's Note:**

> lmao i got bored and did a pregnancy/parenting fic prompts meme on tumblr. They're shorter fics, but I still have a couple I want to fill, so I'll post those and other smaller kid fic scenes that don't fit elsewhere here!

“Okay, just...hold it, and I’ll just shove my foot in.”

Chase raised his eyebrows, skeptically. “Gert, I think maybe your feet are too—”

“Nope,” she says, loudly, cutting him off. “I’m wearing them. I just. Need a little momentum. That’s physics, right?”

Chase makes a face. “Are you actually asking about momentum theory?”

“No,” she glares. “Just hold my stupid shoe, Chase.”

He sighs, but he kneels in front of her, holding the stupid shoe. She braces herself, lifting her foot up, and shoving as hard she can. Her body leans backward with the force, and her chair tips slightly back; Chase drops the shoe, swearing under his breath as he reaches out to steady the chair instead.

“Jesus, Gert,” he mutters. 

“Okay, so that was too much momentum,” she says, shrugging. She pushes herself up. “Let’s try the couch. I won’t tip the couch over.”

He groans. “Gert. Your feet are swollen. You’re eight months pregnant.”

“Wow, really?” She glares, standing up. “Thanks, I definitely hadn’t noticed the actual human growing inside my uterus, so glad you’re here to let me know!”

Chase crosses his arms, giving her an unimpressed look from his spot on the floor. 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said. His voice is steady, which makes her feel like a jerk, which pisses her off. “It’s just normal.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she says, shrugging. Her face feels hot, and she also feels like she might cry. “Um. Can you just go to the farmer’s market by yourself? I’m actually kind of tired.”

“Gert—”

“See if that booth has the strawberry jam, I think we’re almost out,” she says. She’s halfway to the bedroom by the time he sighs and mutters an _okay_.

He brings back the jam, and they don’t talk about it. For the next couple of days, she wears rain boots every time she absolutely has to leave the house, because it’s January in Boston, and they’re the only thing besides Karolina’s old Birkenstocks that are even remotely comfortable.

Almost a week after the Swollen Feet Incident of the Third Trimester, Gert comes home and is greeted by a box of Doc Martens sitting on the kitchen table, a half size up from her old shoes.

She’s still staring at them when Chase walks in; he eyes her warily, a tentative smile on his face.

“If I, like. Overstepped, or whatever. We can take them back. I have the receipt,” he says quickly.

Gert shakes her head, opens her mouth, and then promptly bursts into tears. 

“Um,” Chase says, confused.

“Sorry,” she says, wiping at her eyes. It doesn’t do much, because she’s still crying. “This is just. Really nice. And I was being an asshole—”

“No, you—” Chase stops, smiling a little sheepishly when she manages to glare at him through her tears. “I mean. Yeah, a little.”

“I’m acting like I did when we were teenagers,” she says, quietly. “Like when I didn’t have my meds, and I took it out on you, and I kept cutting you out.”

He bites his lip. “Yeah. You don’t really do that anymore, though,” he says, gently. She nods, and takes a deep breath.

“I’m just freaked out,” she says, quietly. “I want this. I really, really want this. Like, the closer it gets, the more I want it. And then I just get freaked out, because I have no clue what I’m doing, and every new, weird thing that happens with my body is like...that much closer to us actually having a baby, and I still have no clue what I’m doing.”

“You could have told me that,” he says. There was a time, a few years ago, when he would have sounded accusatory, and she’d have gotten defensive right back, and then he’d have slept in the garage while she tossed and turned and kept her dinosaur up all night. That’s not what they’re like anymore, though. He just sounds like he’s waiting for her to explain why.

“You keep reading all these books,” she says, feeling lame even as she says it. Chase just listens. “And Googling everything. And asking your mom, and, like. Reddit. You’re like, prepared.”

“I don’t think Reddit’s ever prepared anyone for anything,” he says, sighing. “I’m not. I think that’s just my way of freaking out. My therapist says I use that shit as a coping mechanism.”

“I can’t decide if well-adjusted Chase is really hot or really annoying,” she says, fondly. He rolls his eyes, and she bites her lip. “I’m kind of really scared.”

He grins. “Yeah, me too. Wanna be scared together?”

He holds out his hand and she laughs, shaking it.

“Deal.”

“Cool,” he says, beaming. “Do you want the Dr. Scholl’s inserts? I got, like, three kinds because I don’t know what kind of arch you have.”

“Okay, _that’s_ really hot.”


	2. “I can’t be pregnant… or….OH MY GOD”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompted by wanheda-maximoff on tumblr! thank you!
> 
> just fyi, there's mentions of vomiting in this part—absolutely nothing graphic, just mentioned but not described, but just wanted to let y'all know if anyone wants to avoid that all together!

Chase wakes up at 3 am to an empty bed and a damp, scaly dinosaur nose poking him in the side. 

“Mmm,” he mumbles. “Sun’s not out yet. Go ‘way.”

Old Lace nudges him again. Aggressively. He jerks out whatever last vestiges of sleep he’d been clinging to, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Okay, _okay_ , what?” he mutters. He rolls onto his back, flopping an arm out, finally registering the excess space. He frowns. “Oh. Where’s Gert?”

Old Lace snorts and huffs frustratedly. Chase makes a face.

“Hey, cut me some slack, it’s the middle of the night,” he says. She looks more annoyed than panicked, so it’s probably not, like, an emergency. They don’t have those as often anymore, now that they’re relatively responsible adults living in a house that isn’t an half sunk into the hills. Old Lace nods her head in the direction of the bathroom.

Gert’s hunched next to the toilet when he walks in, hovering over it warily like she’s not sure if she’s going to need it. Her hair’s already pulled back haphazardly, a butterfly clip and scrunchie enlisted for the task. She looks exhausted, and it kind of makes Chase’s heart hurt.

He raps his knuckles against the doorframe, gently. She looks up quickly, frowning.

“Oh, shit, did I wake you up?” she says. Her throat sounds hoarse. 

“Nah,” he says, walking in, settling beside her, crossing his legs. “I mean. I guess yes, technically—”

“Please tell me there’s no dinosaur puke in our bedroom.”

“Definitely not,” he says, quickly. “Just worried about you.”

“Old Lace is a genetically-engineered tattle tale,” Gert says, grumbling. “Our six year old keeps better secrets.”

“Our six year old just likes pinky promises,” he says, shrugging. “You could have told me you were feeling sick.”

“I wasn’t,” she says, shrugging. “Until, like, an hour ago. I mean, I threw up yesterday at work—”

Chase raises his eyebrows.

“But then I was fine, so I figured it was just something I ate.” She stops, making a face and shaking her head. “Ugh, hold please,” she mutters, leaning back over the toilet. He rubs her back through it, getting up after to grab a wet wash cloth. Gert mutters a thank you, wiping her face.

“Want to go to the doctor in the morning?” he asks. Gert shrugs, and he sighs. “Before we _do_ end up with dinosaur puke in our bedroom.”

Gert makes a face. “Yeah, okay. It’s probably just something I ate, though.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he says. “You just don’t usually get this kind of sick. I don’t think you’ve thrown up like this since you were pregnant.”

Gert nods, for a moment, and then freezes. Chase frowns.

“Um,” he says. “You don’t think—”

“No,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, quickly, holding up his hands.

“I definitely can’t be pregnant,” she says firmly. “Definitely not. I’m absolutely not—”

Her eyes widen, and she scrambles up. Chase blinks, following her back into the bedroom, quickly. She’s already at her nightstand, phone in hand.

“Gert?”

“Shut up, I’m Googling,” she mutters. “Oh shit. Oh _shit_.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Antibiotics can fuck with the pill,” she says. She hasn’t looked up from her phone. “When I got strep from Amelia—”

“ _Oh_ ,” he says. “Oh shit.”

They stare at each other for a moment. The corners of Gert’s lips start to turn up, just slightly. Chase’s shoulders sag a little, in relief. And then, they’re both laughing.

He walks over, wrapping his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She presses her face against his neck, still laughing a little, incredulously.

“We talked about having another one,” he says, against her hair. “I mean, after you finished your social work masters, but—”

“We got together, like, right before the end of the world. Twice,” she says, wryly. “Why would we start having good timing now?”

“Point taken,” he grins. “So you’re okay?”

She nods against him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. For a second there, it was like…I just felt like I should panic? But I don’t think I actually am. I think…I think I’m good.

He grins widely; something in Gert’s eyes go soft.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking this is good,” he says, honestly. “And I’m thinking Amelia would be a really, really good big sister.”

Gert smirks a little. “Amelia’s going to host a debate to convince us to just get her a puppy instead.”

“Probably,” he grins. “See, we make smart kids. We, like. Owe it to the world.”

“Over-population be damned,” she says, teasingly, but she’s grinning. “I guess I should go to the doctor so we, like. Actually know for sure.”

“Unless you still have pregnancy tests left over from last time.”

“Jerk,” she mutters, smacking him in the arm. Still grinning.

“Probably,” he says. 

He’s smiling so hard he thinks his face will still be sore in the morning. 


	3. OH MY GOD I’M GOING INTO LABOR. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon on tumblr!

“Hey, it’s me. Um, Gert. Obviously. Everything’s fine! Don’t, like, freak out because you have a missed call from me. Because everything’s fine, and you don’t need to come home early or anything, I just. Might be in labor? I think? It might be fine, though! I mean, it’s fine if I am, because that’s supposed to happen! So everything’s definitely, absolutely fine.”

Chase wishes they’d brought the Rolls with them to Massachusetts. 

Sure, it’s not “practical” to drive it cross country. And it’s definitely not as safe as the fancy new car they’d started saving up for as soon as they’d realized Gert was pregnant. 

But consider: his mom can’t hack into the Rolls the way she can a fancy smart car. Definitely a perk, he thinks, groaning as she decelerates the car down to the speed limit for the 5th time since he’d left his internship.

“Chase,” she says, voice tinny through the car speakers. “You’ve got to calm down. It’s early, you’ve got time.”

“You said you can’t always predict these things and they happen on their own timeline,” he snaps.

“Yes, two days ago when Gert was worried about being three days past her due date.” she says. He doesn’t know how she still manages to sound like a mom through the console of his Kia. Habit and practice, probably. He wonders how long that kind of thing takes to kick in. 

Because he’s about to be a fucking parent.

“Can you at least, like. Hack the traffic lights?”

“She’s okay, Chase. I’m keeping an eye out through her phone, she’s tracking contractions on that app.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I just don’t want to fuck this up.”

“You’re not going to fuck it up,” she says, firmly. “You’re going to be home in ten minutes, and you’re going to get Gert and the bag you’ve had packed for months, and you’re going to get to the hospital. Everything’s going to be fine.

“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I was serious about hacking the traffic lights.”

For the first time in years, Gert wants her mom.

That's not quite right; she wants to want her mom. She wants the mom she thought she had when she was 17—embarrassing, over-emotionally involved, fiercely protective. Having her entire worldview shattered has left a dull, aching kind of nostalgia for the childhood, for the parenting she'd thought she'd had, and most of the time it hums quietly in the background, always there but never quite worthy of her time and undivided attention.

But right now, she's possibly hours away from pushing an actual human baby out of her actual vagina, and she wants to be someone who has a mom who can be there to hold her hand.

They couldn’t figure out where they were supposed to park when they got to the hospital. It feels like something she should have looked up, or asked. Maybe she had, and she’d just forgotten. She’d made so many fucking lists and asked so many questions, and now, when this kid is ready to claw her way out, Gert can’t remember where they were supposed to fucking park.

So Chase was parking, and Gert’s supposed to be checking in, but—

In another world, Chase is already here, because her parents are parking the car. Because in this other world, they didn’t kill 15 teenagers before she graduated high school. In another world, Chase’s mom doesn’t only exist in an alternate plane of reality, and Chase’s dad isn’t an abusive fuckface, and they’re not alone, 3000 miles from the family they chose. 

Most of the time, Gert feels like she’s come to terms with all the fucked up turns their lives have taken, but she’s about to have a baby. She feels like a little bit of indulgent anxiety and resentment is fair.

Chase comes back in what is definitely record time to navigate a parking deck, but feels like roughly five hours. He frowns a little when she’s still standing exactly where he left. He opens his mouth, but then she catches his eyes, and he stops. 

“You ready?” he asks, his voice steady and careful.

“Not at all,” she says, biting her lip. He grins, laughing a little shakily.

“Me either,” he says, whispering it like it’s a secret, like he did when they were kids and he was just showing her the extra Oreos he snuck out of the panty. Gert laughs a little too, then winces, because, you know. Baby. Trying to come out. Now. 

“I think she is though,” she mutters, and Chase nods, adjusting his grip on her bag with the same kind of surety she’s seen when he’d slip on the fistigons before something scary and unreal. 

“Guess we better get used to her being in charge,” he says, and yeah, he sounds scared, but he sounds excited, too.

She’s excited. This isn’t Morgan, or Jonah, or dirty LA cops. It’s their kid.

Gert slips her hand into his. 

Everything’s going to be fine.


	4. "Why wasn't I at your wedding?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompted by an anon on tumblr! follows [but i'd marry you with paper rings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23643967), but all you really need to know is gert and chase got married in vegas without telling the other kids.

Gert needs a new babysitter. 

Amelia’s curled up in Molly’s lap on the couch, and they’ve been watching The Little Mermaid for the past hour and a half. It’s great, because she finally has a chance to sit down and read Bad Feminist without worrying about her toddler finding the nearest electric socket to play with. 

It’s less great when Ariel and Eric get married at the end. 

“Look, Amelia,” Molly says, her voice a little too loud to be just for the baby. “They’re having a wedding. Doesn’t that look cool?”

Gert rolls her eyes. She does not look up from her book. 

Amelia claps, and babbles a little in a way that’s maybe 10% actual words, which is probably an indicator that her baby is a 15-month-old genius, actually. 

“Yeah, you’re right, she did invite all of her sisters,” Molly says. Very loudly. 

Gert slams her book shut, glaring. “Stop brainwashing my kid, Molly.”

Molly raises her eyebrows, bouncing the baby on her lap. Amelia giggles and claps. It’s almost cute enough to make Gert stop glaring at Molly. Almost.

“We’re just talking about the movie!” she says, then bends her head down next to Amelia’s. “I think someone’s feeling paranoid because Ariel managed to invite all five billion of her mermaid sisters who can’t even go on dry land.”

“Oh my God, Molly—”

“Which is way harder than one sister with a working car—”

“Okay, that’s enough screen time for today,” Gert says, getting up and reclaiming her child. Amelia pouts, like she’s not sure if she wants to cry and at the movement, but settles into her arms when Gert presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Let’s go read, hmm? Do you want to go read? Something that’s not about a woman giving up her voice for a man?”

“You told me that was a reductive take that shut downs the opportunity for nuanced discussion!” Molly says, crossing her arms.

Because she’s a mature adult and mother, Gert chooses not to dignify that with a response. She sticks her tongue out at Molly as they leave.

Because he’s responsible, Chase asks Karolina to watch the baby for, like, five minutes while he’s messing with some exposed wires on his current project. 

He regrets it. 

When he comes back to get her for nap time, Karolina’s officiating a wedding between Amelia’s Tiana doll and her stuffed unicorn. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters. “Did Molly put you up to this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Karolina says, leaning Tiana in to kiss the unicorn. Amelia giggles. “We’re just playing.”

“You’re reinforcing heteronormative expectations of patriarchal traditions,” he says, crossing his arms. He’s pretty sure he got all of the words in an order that makes sense. Karolina looks up, raising her eyebrows. 

“Someone swallowed a dictionary,” she says. “And they’re both girls. That’s at least as subverting expectations as getting married in a Taco Bell.”

“Okay, we didn’t actually get married in the Taco Bell,” he rolls his eyes. “Can I have my kid back? It’s nap time.”

Amelia looks up abruptly, because she knows that word now. Because she’s the smartest baby in the world. 

“No,” she says. “Dada no.”

He’s momentarily distracted by the dada of it all, because she’s been saying it for months now, but it’s still cool. Karolina steps in, handing Amelia a little wicker basket. 

“Here, Amelia,” she says, smiling. “Why don’t you show your dad how good of a flower girl you are?”

“Hey—”

And then Amelia’s grabbing fistfuls of shredded paper from the basket in her chubby little fist, grinning widely as she tosses them into the air. Karolina smiles smugly.

“You’re playing dirty, Dean,” he mutters, crouching down and holding a hand up for Amelia to high five when she reaches him. “Yeah, okay. Good job, munchkin.”

“Family meeting. Now.”

Gert busts into the Treehouse without knocking, Amelia balanced on her hip. Molly follows, sighing heavily as Chase walks in behind her, glaring at the back of her head. Alex trails behind them all, looking only slightly more confused and irritated than normal.

“Yeah, sure, come on in,” Nico says, rolling her eyes. Gert ignores, grabbing Chase’s hand and tugging him with her, in front of the rest of them.

“We get it, okay?” she says, glaring.

“You’re all pissed we got married in Vegas,” Chase says, crossing his arms.

“Without us,” Molly adds, helpfully.

“I’m not pissed,” Nico says.

“You spelled our TV to play Say Yes to the Dress on repeat for an entire day,” Gert says, raising her eyebrows. Nico shrugs.

“Well I’m not pissed,” Alex says. Chase rolls his eyes.

“You used my email to mass sign me up for, like, every wedding photographer in LA’s mailing list,” he says. “Which is actually pretty amatuer for you, bro. You can do better than that.”

“Stop encouraging him to prank us,” Gert says, glaring as she gently removes Amelia’s hands from her hair. 

“Look, we’re sorry we’ve been giving you a hard time,” Karolina says, biting her lip. “It’s your thing, we get it—”

“We do?” Molly asks. Alex elbows her. “Ow. I mean. We do.”

Chase and Gert exchange a glance, both trying not to grin. Nico frowns.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing!” they say, in unison. Molly’s eyes widen.

“Yes, there is,” she says, pointedly. “You’re getting all Chert about something.”

“Still not a thing,” Chase mumbles. Gert bites her lip, but the smile breaks through anyway.

“It was our thing,” she says, carefully. “We love you guys, you know that, but it just felt like something we needed to do, just for us.”

Molly and Karolina exchange (somewhat) guilty glances.

“But,” Chase says, shrugging. “It wasn’t, like, a wedding.”

“Huh?” Alex says, frowning. Molly grins widely. 

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

“We got married for us,” Gert says, softly, smiling at Chase. “But. Maybe we could have a wedding for you guys. Just us, though. And nothing, like. Fancy.”

Molly yelps, jumping up on the bed, pumping a fist in the air. 

“Just for the record, we would have agreed to it sooner if you guys weren’t so annoying,” Chase says.

“Oh, yeah, the Little Mermaid stunt pushed us back, like, a week. At least,” Gert says, agreeing.

“Whatever,” Molly says, hopping off the bed, running to hug them both.

Karolina beams. “Gert, there’s this amazing dress I found—”

“I can get ordained online,” Alex says. Nico glares.

“No way, I’m getting ordained.”

The bickering overlaps with Molly and Karolina’s rush to plan; Amelia begins to babble loudly, refusing to be left out. Chase wraps an arm around Gert, pulling them both close.

“Regretting it yet?” he whispers. Gert grins.

“Not a chance.”


	5. "Your kid before five in the morning"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from shana-rosee on tumblr!
> 
> i realized i've mentioned gertchase having two kids in my post-canon stuff before, but hadn't actually written him in so, hey, here's amelia's little brother.

The sharp, sure rap against their bedroom door comes when it’s still decidedly, very, absolutely pitch dark outside.

Gert groans. She used to be a heavy sleeper, outside of the couple of weeks as a runaway where she didn’t have her anxiety meds and barely slept at all. And then Chase knocked her up, twice. Out of habit and practice, she’s now someone who wakes up at the first knock of a four year old’s tiny fist. 

She stills, hoping Chase’ll just go before he realizes she’s awake.

“Your turn,” he mumbles, sleepily. “I stayed up with him yesterday.”

Ezra is going through a no sleep phase. They’d been lulled into a false sense of complacency by not having an actual baby anymore, and Amelia slept easily, at the drop of a hat, like Chase. But he’s been up in the middle of the night, like, four times in the past week.

“Chaaaase,” she whines. “Your kid needs you.”

“Mm. Today, he’s your kid before five in the morning.”

Gert groans. “Division of labor sucks,” she mutters.

“Go start a union about it.”

“ _Mama_ ,” Ezra whines, through the door. Chase smiles smugly, and Gert sighs, but softens, automatically.

“I’m coming, baby,” she calls out.

He’s waiting patiently outside their door, clutching his security blanket in his hand, holding his other arm out for her, and she grins, scooping him up. He’s getting big; she won’t be able to pick him up like this much longer. 

There are worse reasons to be up in the middle of the night.

“What’s going on, bub?” she asks, softly, walking back to his room. 

“Woke up,” he mumbles, leaning his head against her shoulder. “Thinkin about the bears.”

Ezra’s preschool had taken a trip to the zoo a few days ago. She’d sort of just assumed the bougie-granola-hippie school they’d picked would have gone for something with a strong conservation lean, but apparently _not_. So her kid had come home crying about baby bears being taken away from their mothers.

“Yeah?” she murmured. “Did you have a bad dream?” 

He nods against her neck. She sits on his bed, settling him on her lap. “Do you think the bears are having bad dreams because they miss their mamas? I would miss you if I was the bear.”

“I don’t know,” she murmurs, rubbing his back. “Hey, I have an idea.”

He looks up curiously. “To help the bears?”

“Kind of,” she says, grinning, shifting him on her lap. “We’re going to write a letter to the zoo.”

“A letter?” he echos, skeptically. 

“Mmhm. And we can tell them all about how you felt when you saw the bears,” she says, softly. 

“And then they’ll let them go back?” he asks. She smiles sadly.

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly, because she doesn’t lie to her kid, not even when it would be easier to. “But when you see something wrong, it’s good to talk about it. So people know you’re paying attention. And sometimes, when you talk, people listen, and that’s how change happens.” 

Ezra nods, listening raptly. “I wanna write a letter _now_.”

“Maybe not _right_ now,” she says, quickly. “When you wake up in the morning, okay? Which’ll come sooner if you go to bed now.”

Ezra nods determinedly, climbing off her lap and shimmying back under the covers. “Okay, g’night mama! See you in the morning for my letter!”

She does her best to hold back a laugh as he squeezes his eyes shut tightly.

She waits until he’s solidly asleep to make her way back to her own bed, about half an hour later.

“He fall back asleep?” Chase murmurs.

“Yeah. We’re animal rights activists now, by the way.”

Chase raises an eyebrow and then nods, sleepily giving a fist pump. “Right on.”

**Author's Note:**

> [feel free to prompt me on tumblr](https://yorkesteins.tumblr.com/post/622592314442907648/babyfic-prompts) or comment something you'd like to see?


End file.
